


A Study in Institutionalized Sexism and its Results, by H. Granger

by saltandlimes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, F/M, Grimmauld Place, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Severus Snape Lives, not harry potter and the half blood prince compliant, the wizarding world has a lot of problems, wars are boring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 03:44:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8474116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandlimes/pseuds/saltandlimes
Summary: Two years after graduating Hogwarts, Hermione spends her time at Grimmuald place, compiling reports from the Order. She knows she is safer here than out in the muggle world, but it doesn't stop her from being utterly, completely, desperately bored.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. So hi. I return to the Harry Potter fandom after.. um.. something like almost a decade of just lurking and rereading my favorite fics. Accept my tribute to the greatest pairing of all time as payment for my long absence.

After five weeks of living at Grimmauld Place, Hermione had become convinced that only Sirius’s long stint in Azkaban had allowed him to remain sane during his much shorter residence in the house. After nearly two years of almost constant confinement to the narrow corridors and dank rooms of Headquarters, she isn’t entirely sure that she herself has not become a little cracked. 

After all, what else could explain several facts. 1. Her absolute disgust for the library. It isn’t that the Blacks had a poor collection. No, there are still several hundred volumes that she hasn’t even opened, all neatly squared away on the towering shelves. Yet every time she steps into the room Hermione becomes more and more certain that there is nothing of interest to her on the shelves. As fascinating as reading about the hundreds of abuses wizards had suffered at the hands of muggles, or teasing out the value of another dark spell, another curse, she is more than tired of it at this point. 

2\. Her utter and complete disinterest in her bimonthly meetings with Harry and Ron. As fascinating as it is to hear about Harry’s training, hidden away somewhere even more secret than Headquarters, and as delightful as it is to learn about the myriad ways that Ron and his family are attempting to fly under the radar as known blood traitors, her frustration with the progression of the war is starting to overwhelm her interest in their talks. 

3\. The absurd contrast between those conversations and the ones she has with Severus Snape on an almost daily basis. Snape, gliding down the corridors from his room to settle beside her in the parlor, Snape, reading the latest from one of the numerous journals he has delivered at each meeting of the Order. Snape, poking fun at some half-brained theory or strategy Hermione comes up with to pass the time. It’s absurd, bizarre, and nothing other than the creeping derangement of the house can explain her interest in his company. 

And, of course, most of all, 4. Her overwhelming frustration with the wizarding world. Or at least, the nonsensical attitudes that keep her here “strategizing” while Ron and Harry train in combat. She knows, of course, that she’s at greater risk than Ron. She’s the mudblood best friend of Harry Potter. She’s on the hit list. She’s in danger. But Harry’s being trained, all the same. 

It had taken here quite a while to accept what was going on, of course. She’d tried to find a reasonable explanation. She was the planner, the strategist. Well, that wasn’t quite right. Ron was, in his own way, a capable one as well. She was an information gather. Her work compiling intelligence reports for the Order was essential. Well, that answer wasn’t wrong. But that doesn’t mean she can’t train as well. 

No, the answer had finally come to her during a conversation with Snape, of course. She’d been bemoaning the fact that they had so little work. She’d wondered, offhandedly, if she wouldn’t be of more use cooking meals or something. 

“I’m sure they think you would,” Snape had replied, eyes gleaming in the firelight. Hermione had startled backward across the couch, glaring at him. 

“I’m a terrible cook, I’ll have you know.” Snape had grimaced, and Hermione remembered the one cake she’d tried to bake, early on in their time at Headquarters. 

“I’m aware. It doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t like it better if you asked for a job like that.” 

That had been the end of the conversation, but it had gotten her thinking. In the two years since she and the boys had graduated Hogwarts, had she ever been called on to do anything more than the most obvious academic tasks? She doesn’t think so, somehow. The most interesting, the most stimulating conversations she’s had are with Snape. At Order meetings, her ideas are brushed aside unless one of the boys seconds them, or better, when Snape presents them as a joint effort. 

Snape, in fact, is the only one who accepts them as valid without question. 

It’s in the weeks following this rather unpleasant realization - the wizarding world is just as backward about sexism as it is about servants and racism - that she comes to her second disturbing conclusion. 

She is, disturbingly, impossibly, rather invested in one Severus Snape, former potions master, former spy, and current other resident of Grimmauld Place. They’ve been judged as similarly in danger from the Death Eaters, and this as the most appropriate place for them to hide. While at first Hermione had been absolutely terrified by the idea, that isn’t the case any longer. 

She hadn’t imagined this, of course. Somehow she’d thought that things would progress as they always had. Harry would continue to improve during their sixth and seventh years at Hogwarts and then, in a final battle to end all battles, their seventh year would see the destruction of Voldemort and the end of the War. 

It was an absurd dream, she knows that now. Why would Voldemort rush his plans like that? Why would he use the cycles of the school year to determine when to wage some cataclysmic final battle? A silly, childish dream, but when she first arrived here, she couldn’t help but feel a little cheated. 

That’s gone away, that sneaking feeling that things are not as they were promised. Of course they aren’t. When she’d gone to school at almost twelve, bright eyed and finally not _strange,_ she’d only seen the shining lights of the wizarding world, none of the scum that coats almost every one of those mirrored surfaces. 

She’d thought that Snape was the only scum.

A cruel teacher, and that was what she saw as the worst this new universe of hers could offer. It was a childish fantasy, but Hermione sometimes wishes she’d never seen her new world for what it is. 

But only sometimes. 

She looks up from the parchment in her hand as Snape enters the parlor. She’s been taking half-hearted notes outlining a discussion of sexism in the wizarding world - might as well put her realizations to good use. But it’s just making her blood boil, her heart rate speed. 

“Miss Granger.” Snape nods at her, settles in his customary place at the other end of couch. His hair is tucked back behind his ears, and Hermione has the sudden and strange urge to reach out, brush fingertips across the exposed corners of his cheekbones. She holds herself back, though her hand twitches where it holds the quill. 

“Snape. What are you working on tonight?” Snape holds up a glass of whiskey. 

“Absolutely nothing, Miss Granger. The reports for the next meeting are done. I am working on… learning how to relax? I believe that’s how Dumbledore put it last month, is it not?” Hermione can’t bite back a snicker. Snape’s cutting tone does nothing for Dumbledore’s affectionate suggestion. “And you? You seem to have been mistreating that parchment.”

Hermione looks down. She supposes there are a few points where her quill jabs might have been a little emphatic. There might be some holes in the parchment that weren’t there before. She takes a deep breath. 

“A study of institutionalized sexism in the wizarding world, if you must know.” Snape stares for a moment, whiskey trembling in his hand, then he throws back his head and laughs. Hermione finds herself staring at the long arch of his neck, the curve of his adam’s apple as it bobs in his throat. After a moment, she finds herself joining in. It is a little absurd, when she hears herself say it. 

“Good luck, Miss Granger,” Snape waves a hand, and another glass comes whizzing over. There’s a clink as it’s filled, and then he passes it to her. “I’ll toast to that. May you wage another hopeless crusade from this little prison of ours.” 

Hermione takes a swallow of the amber liquid. It burns a little as it slides down her throat, but its warmth is welcome against the almost constant chill of Headquarters. 

“Another?” She asks, and Snape smiles at her, shark’s teeth and the smirk of a man who knows that there’s nothing to laugh at. 

“How much progress have we made over the past month? The past year?” And suddenly, suddenly Hermione knows that this is it. This is the moment she’s been waiting for. She didn’t even know what it was until now, but now, now she knows. 

“On the war? Very little. But I don’t think it’s been utterly worthless.” She slides across the couch, settles herself next to Snape. They’re close enough to touch, but she doesn’t. Not yet. If this is what she wants - and she’s certain it is, sure as she is sure that the Earth orbits the Sun, she doesn’t want to rush it. Instead, she lifts her glass, presses it to Snape’s lips. His eyes flash in surprise, but he doesn’t startle backward. 

“Drink up, Snape. Wouldn’t want this time to be a complete waste, would we?” He swallows, tongue flicking out to catch a drop that lingers on his lips. 

“Miss Granger?” He breathes out, when she pulls the glass away. Hermione can feel her lips quirking in a smirk, tosses her hair slightly. 

“Mr. Snape. I rather think we have made some progress after all.” She edges even closer, reaches out to set the glass down blindly on the low table in front of the couch. “After all, without your help, I’d never have noticed how differently you and the other wizards treat me. Without your help, I’d not be writing that clearly _revolutionary_ paper over there.” She waves a hand towards the messy scroll of notes. 

“I only treat you as fits your intellect.” Snape breathes. They’re so close now that she can feel the warmth of his skin, the rush of his breath as his chest heaves a little. 

“That you do. Of course,” she reaches out a finger, tenses her stomach and takes the plunge. Snape’s cheekbone is soft under her questing hand, “Of course, it doesn’t hurt that you actually want to talk to me. It doesn’t hurt that I enjoy your company.” Her fingers trace down to his chin, and for a moment, Snape closes his eyes, leans into her hand. Then they snap open, and he pulls a little away. 

“What are you doing, Granger?” The loss of the honorific sends a little thrill down her spine to pool in her stomach. 

“Learning. Experimenting. You said you were done with work for the night. Well, I want to do a bit more research.” Snape laughs again, but this time, it’s rich and missing any of the snideness from before. 

“I can see that. I want to know why.”

“You’re interesting. You’re here. You treat me like a real person. I’m bored. I like you. Whatever answer you like, Snape. They’re all true.” She traces her hand down to the buttons of his shirt, and he doesn’t push her away. “Are you amenable to those reasons?”

He nods, very slowly, and Hermione smiles. Now that she’s made up her mind about this, about wanting this, she’s going to go at it with all the enthusiasm of anything else she does. The first button slips free, and there’s a sliver of milk white skin, the curve of collarbones she’s never seen before. 

“Might I touch you? I mean," he stutters, "what do you want here, Granger?” And Hermione pauses. What exactly does she want. She runs her eyes along Snape’s body. When she gets to the curve of his hips, to the press of his trousers, her mouth suddenly floods with spit. There, his trousers are stretched tight around the bulge of his cock, already half hard by the look of it. She pulls away from his shirt to stretch out a bold palm, cup him through the fabric. 

“Interested, Snape?” She can hear the click as he swallows, feels him twitch under her hand. 

“Granger, I’m cooped up in the house. Of course I am. But you still haven’t answered the question. _What do you want?_ ” Hermione licks her lips, watches Snape’s eyes trace the motion. 

“I’m going to suck you. After that, we’ll see.” And she’s had a lot of time to grow up these past few years. She hardly feels her cheeks flush at the words, but she can see Snape’s face go gratifyingly pale, can feel his cock jerk against the confining trousers. “Is that an adequate plan?”

He nods, speechless. Hermione slips off the couch to kneel on the floor, pushes Snape’s knees wide. She slides between them, unzips his trousers. His boxers are tented inside as well, just a small sliver of his cock showing through the slit. For a moment she contemplates just pulling it through the opening, sucking him with all his mess of clothing still on. But if this goes the way she’s hoping, the clothing won’t stay on the rest of this evening. So she reaches back, pats lightly at Snape’s ass. He lifts up a little, and she slides the trousers and underpants off just enough to free his dick, his balls. 

It’s a nice cock, she decides. She hasn’t seen a lot of them - three maybe, at least ones from this angle, but this is a nice one. It curves up to his belly just the slightest bit, thick but not too long. His balls are heavy below it, and Hermione cups them in one hand as she wraps the other around his cock. They feel nice, warm, and the rolls them a little as she leans forward. Above her, Snape groans, long, gasping. 

“Like that, do you?” She taunts, and then, before he can answer, she licks at the head of his cock. She hasn’t done this more than a few times, but she’s enjoyed it every time. And now, lips wrapping around Snape’s cock, she knows she’s going to enjoy it even more this time. She sucks lightly at him, and Snape moans, one hand finding its way into her hair. 

“G-granger,” he gasps out as she starts to slide down his dick. His cock is heavy in her mouth, and for a moment, she forgets to use her tongue, focus on nothing more than keeping her teeth covered, keeping up the hollowing of her cheeks. But then she tastes the salt of his skin, and she can’t help but lick at it, suck the taste off of his cock. She pulls off a little, glances up at him. Snape is looking down at her, pupils blown, a flush over his pasty cheeks. She grins around the head of his cock and he tugs lightly at her hair. It sends a chill down her spine, and she can feel her panties starting to get wet, can feel herself tighten.

“Thought you said you were going to suck?” His voice is taunting, and Hermione narrows her eyes. She pulls off his dick entirely, cheeks aching a little. Before he can protest, she licks at her hand, gets it wet. Then she’s sucking her way back down his cock, wrapping her soaking hand around the length of it she can’t manage to swallow now. He lets out something close to a whimper, and it makes heat pool in Hermione’s stomach. 

She starts up a rhythm, sucking her way up and down his cock while her hand works at odds with her mouth. Her lips are starting to ache, but it’s a good pain, and with every spark of it, her panties get wetter, another thrum of pleasure echoes through her. She’s still cupping his balls, and suddenly she remembers something she’d read, some long, long time ago, when she’d first started to wonder about this sort of thing. 

She reaches behind them, presses hard on the spot they cover, then starts to stroke at it. Snape yelps. Then his hips are arching up into her, his cock driving into her mouth. She tastes a spurt of precome. 

The hand in her hair tugs, hard. For a moment, Hermione thinks Snape is just still in the throws of reacting to that stroking finger, but he doesn’t let up. She pulls off of his cock, lets it slip from her lips to brush against her chin before she pulls away. 

“What?” He looks down at her, eyes wide and wondering. 

“I was going to come. I thought you said you wanted more than just this.” Hermione can’t hold back a triumphant smile. But when she replies, she makes sure her voice is absolutely calm. 

“Of course I do. But it’s not as though we’re on the clock. After all, I can’t cook, and the reports are done. Really, what are we to do but enjoy ourselves?” She leans forward, nuzzles against the slick side of his dick. 

“The essay was going poorly, anyway."

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang on tumblr at [@saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> (Or, God forbid, if you have an ashwinder account, I'm Aren_silver1)


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